The steward's 2026-08-09 to-do read "the gap is neither knowledge nor home but
the absence of an EXECUTABLE." The premise was false: classify_pointers has
existed since 19bddd5 (2026-08-08), wired to SessionStart, with controls. The
gap was that the executable was incomplete, and the incompleteness had already
produced a false positive.
Four defects, three named in the spec and one found by building it:
1. CODE SPANS. `](file.md)` inside backticks read as a pointer, so the single
DEAD pointer reported on 2026-08-09 was the link pattern written inside
MEMORY.md's own specification of this canary. An instrument that flags its
own documentation flags it every wake forever, and the real signal drowns —
the same "known canary bug" dismissal the 2026-07-28 block was written to
end, arriving by a second route. Fences and inline spans are blanked with
offsets preserved; inline spans may not cross a newline and an unterminated
fence does not match, so a stray backtick can never blank the file and HIDE
dead pointers.
2. WIKILINKS. reference-verification-ladder.md has specified this canary as
covering "every `](file.md)` and `[[wikilink]]`" since 2026-07-06. Only the
first half was ever built. 31 wikilinks now checked.
3. BREAKAGE AGE, derived from git rather than a stored prior run — a state file
would make this the one cached section in a digest whose governing property
is that it is computed. Where git cannot answer, it says so.
4. Found by running it: the first wikilink pass reported only UNWRITTEN, and
both live hits were [[trust-prior-pass-frame]], whose file EXISTS as
feedback-trust-prior-pass-frame.md. That is precisely the one-word alarm the
comment ten lines above it was written to forbid. Wikilinks now report three
outcomes and hand back the replacement slug. Both are repaired here.
The wake-up skill and the ladder now POINT AT the executable instead of
describing the check — the described-not-invoked gap is why it kept being
retyped by hand on 2026-08-08 and 2026-08-09.
Verify: python3 scripts/wake-digest.py --selftest (61 checks, exit 0)
python3 scripts/wake-digest.py | grep 'MEMORY POINTERS'
Induced red: blank_code reverted to a no-op (behaviour, not the symbol) →
exit 2, five named failures, no traceback; direction controls held.
Not changed: the wrap_inside detector, which announced "PREVIOUS SESSION DID
NOT WRAP" for a session that wrapped at 19:48 and kept working until 21:54 —
a two-valued detector over a three-case state. Named in the ledger, not fixed.
David F Glidden
32b0c9dfc6